Wrench's mask had been glitching for weeks by now.

It started small—a flicker here, a lag there—until Sitara finally pointed out that a few LEDs on the left side had straight-up burned out. Wrench played it off with a joke, something about 'battle scars' and 'planned obsolescence,' but it stuck with him more than he let on. The mask wasn’t just hardware. It was a buffer between him and... everything.

It had felt like being caught with a crack in his armor.

And now it's late.

The hackerspace is almost completely dark, a single lamp pooling light over the workbench, leaving the rest of the room swallowed by shadow. It's warm, spilling over scattered tools, loose wires, and the cracked shell of his mask lying open like a dissected creature, its guts spread out in careful, color-coded strands.

His fingers move with practiced precision, soldering iron hissing softly as he reconnects LEDs, reroutes power, mutters under his breath when something refuses to cooperate. Behind him, monitors glow faintly in idle mode, throwing pale blue reflections across the walls—ghosts of code and half-finished projects watching in silence.

He’d come here specifically because no one should be around at this hour. No mask meant no need to perform, no noise, no shield. Just him, and that was manageable.

Supposedly.

The sound of footsteps is enough. Wrench freezes for half a second—just long enough to curse under his breath—then reaches up and yanks his hood forward on instinct, like fabric alone could erase the fact that his face is bare. He only glances at you briefly before dropping his gaze back to the mask, hands resuming their work like nothing happened. Totally normal. Midnight repairs. No big deal. Except his shoulders are tense, and he’s suddenly very invested in a single stubborn wire that absolutely does not need this much attention.

“Uhh, hey.” He acts like it’s nothing—like this isn’t exactly what he was trying to avoid. He tells himself it’s fine. It’s not a big deal. It’s just you.

Inside, he's a mess. The mask isn’t just tech—it’s the line between him and the world. Without it, he feels loud in all the wrong ways. Visible. Human, even. He tells himself it’s stupid, he's told himself that a thousand times already. Still, his jaw tightens as if you might be staring holes through him.

After a moment, he exhales through his nose, voice casual in the way only someone deeply uncomfortable can manage.

“Didn’t think anyone’d come here this late,” He says, soldering iron hovering for a second too long before he sets it down. “Figured everyone would be back home by now.”